Shadow Workings charts Lara’s navigation of her experience with home as an in-between, liminal place. A multi-disciplinary artist, Lara has arrived at shadows as a visual articulation of this ungraspable relationship, a sense of place that is as much distant as it is present. As the shadow of a tree drapes softly over a building, transforms it, becomes it; these separate entities merge whilst remaining apart.
‘…there is something immigrant about the air I breathe, the water I drink, the carbon in my bones, and the thoughts in my mind’ (Jenny Odell)
Lara’s papercuts reflect the movement of their maker and the migration that preceded her. Verging on abstraction, they transform the landscapes they are in and reframe them for the looker. They imprint shadows, dream-like tableaus to intercept any given surrounding. To make these dream sequences is to try to capture the ungraspable home. Physically, the shadows cause the imagined to meet the understood patterns of reality.
Cyanotype is an evolution of the shadow play, a way to harness the shadows the papercuts create. The results are physical, tangible, almost ghost-like versions of Lara’s original cuttings.
‘The play of shadows is more than an optical matter. It speaks to our vision of the self, to our constant labour of identity-making. Shadows are transformative presences that allow us to discover the other side of ourselves. They are the membrane that separates us from the world of darkness. Separating day and night, blackness and light, they offer a renewed way of looking at the world’ (Paolo S.H Favero)
Thanks to Typa Center for providing the time and space for these artworks to be created. Shown at Armastuse Saal, Tartu 2021 and A home for Art, Highgate Contemporary, 2021
Photos thanks to Mana Kaasik and Joshua Osborne
